Jun 04, 2020 - Sale 2535

Sale 2535 - Lot 113

Price Realized: $ 10,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,000
LUCILLE MALKIA ROBERTS (1927 - 2010)
Untitled (Guitarist).

Oil on cotton canvas, circa 1976-80. 1245x1067 mm; 49x42 inches. Signed in oil, lower right.

Provenance: private collection, Washington, DC.

Lucille Malkia Roberts is best known for these large and expressive late 1970 and early 1980s paintings that combine and balance figurative and abstract elements. Born in Washington, DC, Roberts earned her BFA from Howard University in 1945, and her MFA from the University of Michigan's Institute of Fine Arts, Ann Arbor, in 1947. After pursuing post-graduate study in Mexico City and at New York University with Hale Woodruff, she returned to Howard University. There she taught painting and design from 1976 to 1985 while having numerous solo exhibitons.

Her extensive career is noted in such historical surveys as the St. James Guide to Black Artists, Samella Lewis's African American Art and Artists and Leslie King-Hammond and bell hooks's Gumbo Ya Ya: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Women Artists. Her paintings are included in the collections of Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, and the Evans-Tibbs Collection, Washington, DC. Swann Galleries previously sold The Guitarist by Roberts from the estate of Dr. Richard A. Long on October 9, 2014. King-Hammond pp. 229-30.